“French” apostrophe?

I don’t know how many have noticed this before, but the Arno Pro fonts have a character variant for uni2019 (quoteright) which is registered for {locl} substitution under languagesystem latn FRA. This alternate glyph has increased sidebearings on both sides.

That is to say, when a setting is language-tagged as French, the apostrophe is spaced noticeably looser (+30 units each side for Text Regular style):

Now, I can understand that designers of different nationalities might have slightly different preferences for overall fitting, influenced by their native typesetting traditions.

But is le goût Français for l’apostrophe really so radically different from others as to warrant such a localized distinction in general-purpose fonts?

Arno is the only instance where I’ve seen this done. Is Slimbach just being overly fussy here, or is he the avant-garde of something important?

I’m particularly interested to hear the perspective of native French designers or, better yet, French typographers.

No, Stephen, there is no localization for other French punctuation. But I don’t want to stray from my specific question about the apostrophe and into a discussion of French punctuation in general. Not yet, anyway.

Hrant, thanks for sharing JBM’s comments.

I can understand the objection to a too-tight L-apostophe pair in French context. In my opinion, L-quoteright is often kerned too tightly in text faces, in general.

L’Allemande is a classic test case in my own workflow.

I agree that Minion Pro is too tight, in this regard. But is that Arno default setting still so crowded as to warrant a separate French apostrophe? I lean toward the feeling that it is overly pedantic, in this case.

But what do I know? That’s why I’m asking. Perhaps I will be persuaded otherwise.

Seconding what JBM seems to say, because of apostrophe kerning, there are a lot of problematic situations with french, such as "L'a" where things get too close. I've seen the problem with Minion too. This requires triplet kerning, which isn't always easy to implement, depending the software you're using, the kerning has to be edited manually. Maybe this is some sort of workaround…?

Concerning Arno, I don't feel the default kerning for "L'heure d'aujourd'hui" in Arno is unacceptable though the French kerning looks more congenial to me. There are situations however where the standard kerning (the kerning I am getting with Xelatex) is crowded

I tend to agree. But English and French (and Italian, to a lesser extend) don't have the same use of the apostrophe. French uses apostrophes extensively, and the kerning of the apostrophe in Minion Pro (and in Arno Pro in some cases, like Michel Boyer has noticed) is uniquely based on its English use.

These fonts are supposed to cover a lot of languages, and kerning is only done with English in mind...

Not all English-speaking type designers kern only with English in mind, btw. ;-)

Being mindful that there are frequent combinations in French that need to be considered from a French perspective, I am still trying to uncover whether there is a compelling reason to address them with a) a languagesystem-specific solution, and b) with a separate, wider-fitted quoteright.

Humor me while I continue to explore this out loud.

It seems to me that the specific issues of greatest concern to French users regarding the apostrophe are:

1) The L-quoteright combination, given the importance of the French definite article(s), and

With respect to 2) — If quoteright-agrave or quoteright-acircumflex appear too crowded for French, wouldn’t they be equally crowded for, say, Portuguese or Welsh or Yoruba? Is there something actually different about the French language in this regard?

My point is: Is this really a language-specific issue? Or should type designers just pay more attention to these combinations and include class-kerning exceptions as necessary (even if the pair is not crashing, per se)? Is it just a matter of broader consideration and better exposure to good examples?

With respect to 1) — As I said, I think the L-quoteright combination is often kerned too tightly. Even in a non-French context, there are combinations like L’. and L’, to consider. (Again, Minion Pro fails on these counts too).

Given that single-quoted all-caps settings of words ending in L are probably relatively uncommon, wouldn’t it make more sense to kern the L-quoteright combination for the more useful French context by default?

Does it really require an alternate “French” apostrophe to resolve this?

Turning the question around: should French type designers be considering including a separate, more tightly fitted apostrophe for non-French use, to be registered under {locl} languagesystem latn ENG? ;-)

If “L’utile” is correct and “L’étoile” is horrible, the problem is not just the kerning of the apostrophe against the letter L but implies also the kerning of the letters following the apostrophe.

In Minion Pro (sfnt revision 2,015) the letter L is in a left kerning class for which the right kerning class containing quoteright has a kerning of -135. Maybe that could be reduced.

The problem with “L’étoile” comes more from the fact that quoteright is in a left kerning class for which the letters c, d, e, o and variants are in a right kerning class with a kerning of -138. So all those letters when following the apostrophe will be moved left that number of units and cause the same disagreement. On the other hand, the kerning of u against quoteright is -34, and, if it looks fine, that may imply that replacing the -138 above by -34 would help. The kerning of a and its accented variants following quoteright is -80, that of i is -53, and that of y is -32.

Maybe I am naive (I am certainly inexperienced) but considering the fact that quoteright and quotedblright make up a left kerning class by themselves, it seems to me that adjusting their kerning against just three or four right kerning classes should solve the problem. I almost never use Minion and never took the time to try, but that would be the first thing I would do, if I had no choice (with LaTeX, I have other options).

Are those choices language independent? I don’t know. Is there any reason for a -138 kerning between quoteright and letters in the class e, o, d etc (those having a round shape on the left)? Was that just dictated by a geometric argument, independently of any linguistic consideration? I wonder.

As for the idea of having an alternative quoteright, why not? I would put it in the same left and right kerning classes as quoteright but I would personally put it in a style, not as a localized form (I assume GSUBs are executed before GPOS, I have not looked at those things in a long time). I will not comment on whether it is a need or a luxury.

I've been waiting for someone more qualified to say this, but in vain.

Don't you think kerning is a general issue that is inherent to the design and not language dependent? Imagine someone wants to publish a fantasy novel including words and sentences in a fantasy language. No one can predict what sequences of letters and punctuation marks the author may design for that language. Firstly, all punctuation should be kerned against all letters that might virtually need it. Secondly, any introduced kerning classes should be checked for causing contextual problems like that. Period. Checking against known frequent pairs is only a means to detect general problems, not the sole purpose.

As some of you have stated this issue impacts not only French, but also Italian and Portuguese. However no one suggests making a PTG and ITA locl features. And how can you be sure if there aren't another 10 languages impacted by this error?

Thomas — I do realize that the matter of French elision involves much more than just d’ and l’.

The main thrust of my argument above was that I don’t think that fitting for French needs to be at odds with fitting for English (or any other language). Not such that a separate quoteright glyph is needed.

It just needs to be approached with broader awareness and care.

Michel — I think we all need to stop looking at Minion Pro as a frame of reference. I think we can all agree that the current version is a horrible example with regard to the apostrophe — in so many ways, not just French, as Christian’s examples point out.

I am not challenging the idea that French benefits from more open fitting of apostrophe with accented characters.

My question is: If one can accommodate all the French issues with appropriate kerning, does one really need a different apostrophe glyph? Are these issues any different in French than in any other language involving the same characters?

Maybe I’m being stubborn, and it’s just easier to put in a special, wider quoteright. As some have said, Why not?

Thinking about this more, and for the sake of argument, let’s assume that a localized, more widely fitted quoteright, à la Arno, is in fact a desirable solution to these issues (and not just an overcompensation for angry complaints about past bad decisions ;-).

If the only difference is to have an overall looser fit by adding more space to the sidebearings, then it seems to me that, rather than maintaining a separate alternate glyph, one could simply include a bit of localized glyph positioning:

I think there are two different questions involved and one concerns kerning classes. Let me come back to Minion, not because it is a representative example, but because Adobe made public the source files for Minion Pro Caption. The file features.kern to be used by makeotf contains the line

It then appears clearly that the kerning was based on geometry. On the other hand the class @ROUND_LC_RIGHT contains vowels and consonants. In French and Portuguese, so far as I know, only a vowel and h can follow an apostrophe. In English you have "I'd", "I'll", "we'd", "we'll" and I must confess that I am not shocked by the "we'd" Christian got.

I think the class could advantageously be split and vowels be given a smaller kern value.

What you point out is a general caution to be considered when creating class kerning. It is easy to be overzealous with classes. There are various arguments for different philosophies of lumping or splitting.

But I do not think the issue here is strictly (or even largely) one of whether round consonants and round vowels should be classed together.

I would argue in the case of your Minion example that it is more the overall value that is in error, not necessarily the class composition (although perhaps that also).

I think that most folks here would agree that both the round vowels and the round consonants in that Minion example deserve smaller values. I might suggest that they could be the same smaller value.

Would you say that the English we’d and o’clock should be different from the French c’est?

If indeed so, then perhaps you can make a case for splitting round consonants from round vowel classes.

But I think a more pertinent question would be, Should the English literary e’en be any different from the French c’est?

If you say Yes, then I suppose we have an argument for a distinctly different French apostrophe.

I’m intrigued to hear why one would want to kern vowels and consonants differently if they share the same profile. That seems to imply some kind of fundamental philosophical difference in how these categories of letters ought to behave — for their phonetics, across languages and orthographies, really?

I can't give any reference to justify my position. I just took Source Serif Pro and made it so that after an apostrophe, vowels get more spacing (the kern for e is changed from -89 to -40). The first two lines are the original font, the next are the modified version. I'll leave others decide but I prefer my last line.

Michel — When you replaced your image with a changed version, you put the first two paragraphs of my subsequent comment into a false context. :-(

For the record, I no longer care so much for the English in the second example. I feel that such different values between the consonants and the vowels is incongruous. But, as I implied, I personally feel that the default setting for English is a bit snug. Acceptable in that context perhaps, but I agree that it is not comfortable for French.

I suppose that if a type designer does feel strongly that such a snug setting for English is the desired default in a font, then supplying an alternative for French & Italian use may be strongly advised.

And perhaps even if the default is perfectly acceptable across the board, a slightly more generous alternative might still be un peu plus agréable for French (as you indicated for the Arno example)?:

As for the actual values I don't see why they should be determined by equations.

Not by equations. I provided a number only as a frame of reference to draw out the difference in my handling of the accented character.

As C.H. Griffith once said to W.A. Dwiggins: The eye is the final arbiter.

However, the eye comes with the bias of experience and exposure. As a type designer, sometimes it is useful to learn to see through the eyes of another. ;-)

Which is what conversations like this help me to do. Hopefully others as well. So, for that I thank you, Michel et Thomas.

Michel — When you replaced your image with a changed version, you put the first two paragraphs of my subsequent comment into a false context. :-(

Sorry and the original is at home, I can't post it back here.

My eye tells me that the spacing after the apostrophe in "L'être" is too tight but what bothers me is that I am not quite sure why. I think my personal rule is about this: if my eye tells me there is less space to the right than to the left of the apostrophe, there is a problem. If there is more space to the right, I don't mind.

Notice that the apostrophe is not part of the word. According the "Le Ramat de la typographie", you must write "Le mois d'octobre" to emphasize the month; Here « d'» is not emphasized. The apostrophe replaces the letter e in the preceding word (here de).